Tuesday, March 25, 2008

I was driving past Providence Country Club Monday afternoon when I noticed the single most undeniable sign that the spring golf season has arrived.

They were aerating the greens.

The putting surface had disappeared under a layer of little plugs pulled from the ground. Then, after the plugs had been moved away, the once slick, green surface was covered by enough sand to make you wonder if it’s a penalty to ground your putter on the green.

The weather forecast for later this week is as sweet as Stephen Curry’s jump shot and all around the area greens are being aerated. Bummer.

That means for the two weeks after the aeration is complete the greens will be slower than lines at the DMV and just about as pretty.

It’s a necessary evil – like going to the dentist – but there’s never a good time to have the greens punched.

It doesn’t mean golfers will quit playing. Some will take a break or find someplace where the aeration calendar is set differently, but eventually the lure overwhelms us all and we go back out there, thinking the greens won’t be too bad.

We’ll be wrong, of course, but golfers – despite our tendency to think the golf gods have it in for us – keep a curious optimism. How else you explain the guy who’s just chopped his drive 125 yards waiting for the green to clear 240 yards away before hitting his next shot?

One good thing about playing on recently aerated greens – it’s easier to explain away your three-putts.

1 comments:

poolman
said...

Hi Ron, nice writing.

As far as hacking a drive 125, then waiting for the green to clear for the 240 shot, I remember one time i muffed a shot, I'm about 230 from the green. I know if I absolutely flush my five wood-rare, but it happens-I might hit it 225. So I don't wait for the green to clear, and sure enough i hit a great shot, and it rolls up about 10 yds shy of the green. The guys on the green go apeshit, and one of them starts hitting balls back at me. So, that might explain the waiting, but maybe I should just lay up.